Many networks include one or more network traffic management apparatuses that perform any number of functions relating to load balancing, network security, and/or application acceleration, for example. In one particular exemplary implementation, a network traffic management apparatus may be disposed proximate server devices in a network in order to optimize and accelerate communications between client devices and applications hosted by the server devices.
In order to facilitate monitoring and effective configuration and operation, network traffic management apparatuses can maintain statistics in application visibility and reporting (AVR) databases, for example. In one particular example, network traffic management apparatuses can maintain transmission control protocol (TCP) statistics indexed based on entities (e.g., virtual servers, IP addresses, and/or next hop address) that are visible at the transport layer to facilitate TCP analytics. Accordingly, administrators can query the AVR database for any combination of entity values to retrieve statistics for a subset of TCP connections.
In this example, higher layers (e.g., application, presentation, and session layers) may have more relevant information regarding the purpose and relevance of TCP connections. More generally, the statistics that could benefit from relevant information associated with a first layer can be associated with a second layer that is higher or lower than the first layer. Accordingly, queries in an AVR database for TCP analytics, for example, are currently limited to the entities that are visible at the transport layer or below, rendering interpretation, analysis, and classification of TCP statistics difficult for administrators.